Wednesday, 10 August 2011

Ace Doctor Who fanzine Vworp Vowrp returns

The team behind the wonderful Doctor Who fan magazine Vworp Vworp - a fanzine about the long-running and best-seling Doctor Who Magazine - are taking pre-orders for their second issue

The new issue includes an all-new comic strip featuring the Dalek killing anti-hro Abslom Daak, created by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon.

Editor Colin Brockhurst tells us they're aiming to publish in late August or early September after quite a break since Issue 1 - testament to the huge amount of work being put into the title, which even includes a smashing-looking free gift featuring art by Adrian Salmon.

Contents include

The first half of an exhaustive Abslom Daak tribute, including interviews with writer Steve Moore, and artists Steve Dillon and David Lloyd.

There's also a Daak comic strip, written for Doctor Who Magazine by Steve Moore in 1980 but withdrawn after a disagreement with the editor, now finally brought to the page by DWM artists Martin Geraghty, Adrian Salmon and Roger Langridge.

A series of DWM editor interviews kicks off with a fascinating chat between founding Dez Skinn and current head honcho Tom Spilsbury. The magazine also chats to Paul Neary, Alan McKenzie, Cefn Ridout and the elusive Sheila Cranna.

Dave Gibbons, Steve Parkhouse and Mick McMahon discuss The Tides of Time and Junkyard Demon, and we take in The Lodger with Gareth Roberts and Mike Collins.

Plus there's more comic strip - The Housekeeper, a story written by Paul Magrs and drawn by Bret M Herholz starring Mrs Wibbesey and the Fourth Doctor.

Vworp Vworp 2 comes with two covers: a wraparound Abslom Daak cover by Mike Collins, and an early Doctor Who Monthly pastiche featuring Junkyard Demon (with Jason Fletcher and Ben Willsher’s take on Daak on the back.

Plus, there's a fantastic free gift in the form of a ‘Vworpabix’ board game. Based on the 1970s Weetabix game, Vworp Vworp's has 16 character cards by Adrian Salmon and boards by Paul Grist, Jon Pinto, Leighton Noyes and Graeme Neil Reid.

A very limited edition magazine, you can pre-order it here from the Vworp Vworp web site!

The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others. He's currently editor of the upcoming Strip Magazine for Print Media Productions.

About the Writers:

• Matthew Badham has written features for Judge Dredd: The Megazine, the Forbidden Planet International blog and more

• Jeremy Briggs contributes news, reviews, interviews and historical articles on British comics. He is a guest writer on Steve Holland's UK comics history blog, Bear Alley, and has written for Comics International, TV Zone, Spaceship Away and Omnivistascope.

• David Hailwood has written comic strips for various publications, including TOXIC, Accent UK, Bulletproof and Futurequake. He also writes comedy material for TV, and regularly contributes to the Temple APA (a showcase for UK comic writers and artists).

• Andy Luke is a writer who draws: he's s created the eponymous Andy Luke's Comic Book, Gran, Absence: a comic about epilepsy, Hold the Phones, It's Alex Jones, and graphic novel, The Watch Thief. He's written about comics too, mainly for Bugpowder.com, and has been involved with the Caption comics festival in Oxford. He currently lives in Belfast with a large box of pasta and a 7ft tall cigarette, and can be found online at http://andy-luke.com and http://awriterwhodraws.com

• Ian Wheeler is a freelance writer who also edited the highly-acclaimed British comics fanzine Eagle Flies Again.